Yes, hard borders are far more recent than people think. As late as the First World War you could travel the world without so much as a passport.
But: back then only a handful of very rich people had the means to do that, and taxation and social protection were much lower than today. Those things are related. They (IMO of course!) are what make borders a pragmatic necessity.
The most obvious one is that the modern welfare state relies for its legitimacy on social cohesion, i.e. a certain base of shared values and identity. You will not get people to consent to heavy taxation and redistribution if they feel that their society is full of foreigners. This observation is perhaps more relevant to Europe than the USA.
And that's before mentioning the economics of funding a welfare state with a relatively static/shrinking tax base and growing, imported, welfare recipient class - the latter being practically unbounded in the case of illegal immigration.
I don't think that's fair; one of the most significant criticisms of the AI industry is the number of misleading claims made by its spokespeople, which has had a significant effect on public perception. The parent comment is a relevant expression of that.
That was an illuminating question. Thank you. I see my parent's point now because no, I don't think that disagreement requires what amounts to censure if it makes it harder for something to be seen.
At the point where tensions rise beyond polite disagreement, HN ceases to be a functional social space and turns into a game of "who can make the other's opinions disappear first."
Doing so is technically against the rules, but either the moderators don't care, aren't doing it on a large enough scale to be an effective deterrent, or are knowingly complicit.
>If one posts a couple of solid paragraphs as a reply, one looks like an autistic weirdo info-bombing.
As one should. The rando who spams a discussion thread with an impenetrable wall of text is like that guy who uses their "question" at the end of an in-person panel discussion to ramble incoherently for three minutes. Yes, here we can scroll past it, but it's still presumptious and annoying. This is not primary content (that's at the top). Here we're all nobodies to everyone else. For my part I try to remember that fact - and get to the point.
In a forum, the discussion IS primary content. That's the problem: Reddit has shifted away from being a discussion forum toward an endless-scroll content feed.
> Here we're all nobodies to everyone else. For my part I try to remember that fact - and get to the point.
Kind of an odd turn of logic. If being a nobody devalues your anecdotes or tangents, then it equally devalues your point. If, conversely, your point can be valuable in and of itself, then your anecdotes and tangents can be valuable in and of themselves too.
> Yes, here we can scroll past it, but [...] This is not primary content (that's at the top).
Incidentally, you don't have to scroll past anything to reach the content at the top of the page. It's at the top of the page.
My point is that the primary content at the top of the page has a byline. It's already vouched for, somewhat, by the reputation of the domain, or publication, or author. We have an idea of whether to spend our time investigating further. By contrast my rando comment (or yours) has nothing to recommend it but some opaque username. That's why I (and I'm betting most people) will scroll right past the "autistic weirdo"'s wall of text. And why I personally choose to try not to write that text.
Two ordinary paragraphs like one would find in any serious publication, are now enough to make an “impenetrable wall of text”?
You also overlook the fact that many Reddit posts are not links to content. For example, they could be text-post questions posed to a community in order for the OP to receive guidance. This recent culture discouraging substantial discussion about things that are complex and can’t be abbreviated, makes the site less useful that way.
A "boarding pass" was always a redundant document anyway. As are "tickets" whenever ID is required for the service in question. The ID has a number on it, in the system that's the ticket. In police states like China, tickets are a thing of the past.
That flying - an entirely unsustainable mode of transport - is now widely viewed as a commoditized consumer good is already a form of ethical collapse IMO. Now this. We need regulation. But for that, people need choose it, to vote for it.
Technically true but I've found it to be less addictive than other text forums (like the R-site and Lemmy), let alone the algo-powered video-based abominations that normies are all hooked on.
I'm thinking that it comes down to one thing in particular: the absence of response notifications. There's only so much addiction you can get out of a page of text without so much as a bell icon.
But: back then only a handful of very rich people had the means to do that, and taxation and social protection were much lower than today. Those things are related. They (IMO of course!) are what make borders a pragmatic necessity.
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